Ivy League Gets Greenest

  • In this Green Power Challenge, only 54 schools were purchasing enough green power to qualify. (Photo courtesy of NREL)

Colleges and universities have been competing to see who can buy the most green energy. Rebecca Williams has this year’s results:

Transcript

Colleges and universities have been competing to see who can buy the most green energy. Rebecca Williams has this year’s results:

The Environmental Protection Agency puts on what it calls a “green power challenge” among colleges each year – who’s using more renewable power such as solar, wind, and geothermal.

This year, the Ivy League beat out the Big Ten to come in first.

The University of Pennsylvania was the top winner.

Blaine Collison directs EPA’s Green Power Partnership. He says colleges and universities can have a lot of influence with utility companies.

“If every school in America were to stand up tomorrow and say ‘we want to be 50% green powered by the end of next year’, the supply side of the market would say, ‘great, let’s talk about how to do that.’”

But in this competition, there’s a lot of room at the top. Only 54 schools were purchasing enough green power to qualify for the challenge.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Carmakers Race Toward Next Hybrid

  • The powertrain of the Chevy Volt. This concept image shows the lithium ion battery pack running down the center of the vehicle. (Image courtesy of GM)

If you’ve been thinking about buying a hybrid
vehicle sometime in the future, 2010 might be your
year. General Motors and Toyota have been battling
to be the first to build the next generation of hybrids.
And both say 2010 is the year it will happen. Dustin
Dwyer reports:

Transcript

If you’ve been thinking about buying a hybrid
vehicle sometime in the future, 2010 might be your
year. General Motors and Toyota have been battling
to be the first to build the next generation of hybrids.
And both say 2010 is the year it will happen. Dustin
Dwyer reports:

GM engineers and executives more or less admit that the first round of
hybrid vehicle development went to Toyota. The Prius is by far the best
selling hybrid on the road.

But GM has been racing to win the second round on hybrids.

GM CEO Rick Wagoner says his company will have a new kind of
hybrid battery, and a more powerful electric motor ready by 2010.

“And because our new system is three times more powerful, we’ll also
be able to use it in a wider range of powertrains, and that’s exactly what
we plan to do.”

Wagoner says the more powerful hybrid system will save more gas. And
applying it to more vehicles will make the system cheaper.

Toyota says it’s also working to have its next generation of hybrids ready by 2010.

For The Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

College Rivals Face Off Over Recyclables

More than 90 colleges across the country are locked in a competition. Only this competition isn’t played with a ball it’s played with trash. The GLRC’s Fred Kight explains:

Transcript

More than 90 colleges across the country are locked in a competition.
Only this competition isn’t played with a ball it’s played with trash. The
GLRC’s Fred Kight explains:


The competition is known as Recycle-mania and it started five years ago
when officials at two rival schools in Ohio decided they needed to do
something about the amount of trash being generated on their campuses.
Over a period of several weeks, the two competed to see who could
recycle the most.


The next year, more colleges signed up… and now the number
participating is up to 93. They’ve joined in to reduce waste and save
money but Ohio University organizer Ed Newman says there’s more to it
than that…


“We’re cranking out citizens from this place… and if they could take
some of these better habits and expand on them… transfer these ideas to
the community… I think that’s part of our role as an educational
institution.”


The winning school will be crowned after the competition ends on April
8th.


For the GLRC, I’m Fred Kight.

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Ten Threats: The Earliest Invader

  • A bridge for a river... this portion of the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee River via an aqueduct in Rochester, NY. This photo was taken around 1914. (From the collection of the Rochester Public Library Local History Division)

The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:

Transcript

We’re bringing you an extensive series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is guiding us through the reports:


“The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:


If the history of invasive species were a movie, it would open like this:


(Sound of banjo)


It’s 1825. Politicians have just ridden the first ship across the newly dug Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York.


(Sound of “The Erie Canal”)


“I’ve got an old mule, and her name is Sal. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal…”


Chuck O’Neill is an invasive species expert with New York Sea Grant.


“At the canal’s formal opening, Governor DeWitt Clinton dumped a cask of Lake Erie water; he dumped that water into New York Harbor.”


Meanwhile, in Buffalo, a cask of Hudson River water was triumphantly poured into Lake Erie.


“In a movie, that would be the flashback with the impending doom-type music in the background.”


(Sound of ominous music)


It was an engineering and economic milestone, but a danger lurked. For the first time since glaciers carved the landscape twelve thousand years ago, water from the Hudson and water from the Great Lakes mixed.


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


Enter the villain: the sea lamprey. It’s a slimy, snake-like parasite in the Atlantic Ocean. It sucks the blood of host fish.


Within a decade after the Erie Canal and its network of feeders opened, the sea lamprey uses the waterways to swim into Lake Ontario. By the 1920’s and 30’s, it squirms into the upper Lakes, bypassing Niagara Falls through the Welland Canal.


What happens next is among the most notorious examples of damage done by an invasive species in the Great Lakes. By the 1950’s, the sea lamprey devastates Lake trout populations in Lake Superior. Mark Gaden is with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.


“They changed a way of life in the Great Lakes basin, the lampreys. They preyed directly on fish, they drove commercial fisheries out of business, the communities in the areas that were built around the fisheries were impacted severely.”


The sea lamprey wasn’t the only invader that used the canals. Canal barges carried stowaway plants and animals in their hulls and ballast. In the mid-1800’s, the European faucet snail clogged water intakes across the region. The European pea clam, purple loosestrife, marsh foxtail, flowering rush – all used the canal system to enter the Great Lakes.


Chuck O’Neill says the spread of invasive species also tells the tale of human transportation.


“If you look at a map, you can pretty much say there was some kind of a right-of-way – railroad, canal, stageline – that was in those areas just by the vegetation patterns.”


Almost one hundred invasive species came to the Great Lakes this way before 1960. O’Neill says every new arrival had a cascading effect.


“Each time you add in to an ecosystem another organism that can out-compete the native organisms that evolved there, you’re gradually making that ecosystem more and more artificial, less and less stable, much more likely to be invaded by the next invader that comes along.”


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


The next one in the Great Lakes just might be the Asian Carp. It’s swimming up the Illinois River, headed toward Lake Michigan. Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes.


“If this thing gets in, it can cause catastrophic damage to the Great Lakes, ‘cause it eats thirty, forty percent of its body weight in plankton every day, and plankton are the base of the food chain in the Great Lakes.”


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed an electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that might stop the carp. But as long as the canals around the region remain open for shipping and recreation, it’s likely more invaders may hitch a ride or simply swim into the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

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A Snow Sculpting Pilgrimage

  • Gary Tessier of Team Manitoba works on the team's 16-foot-high snow sculpture in Gatineau, Quebec. (Photo by Karen Kelly)

Every year, snow sculptors from the U.S. and Canada travel
to northern cities to carve huge works of art. They often depict things such as legends of sea monsters and native spirits. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, these artists are driven by a shared passion for the outdoors:

Transcript

Every year, snow sculptors from the US and Canada travel to northern cities to carve huge works of art. They often depict things such as legends of sea monsters and native spirits. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, these artists are driven by a shared passion for the outdoors:


(sound of chipping and scraping)


Gary Tessier is jabbing a spade into the side of a towering block of snow. He and his team are here to compete in a snow sculpture competition in Gatineau, Quebec. It’s just across the Ottawa River from Ottawa, Canada’s capital. The team has 50 hours to transform this 16 foot high block of snow into a work of art. They work from 8:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night – shoveling, scraping and sawing.


“Basically, fundamentally, you use a good sharp spade and these homemade sander kind of things. A whole variety of tools and uh, it doesn’t take much.”


The team is creating a sculpture based on a legend of a fiddler from their hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The fiddler drowned in the Winnepeg River and the legend has it that people can still hear his music in the rapids. Gary uses the spade to follow the outline of a fiddle drawn in black magic marker on the snow.


“I’m working on one of the what do you call that? La manche… du violin… comment t’appelle ca? The fiddlehead! The fiddlehead. When we’re finished, hopefully it’ll be two fiddleheads and the fiddler surrounded by the water that well, he lost his life in, but went on to forever playing music.”


Gary and his sculpting partner Real Berard have been going to snow sculpting competitions for 25 years. They both work in the arts, Gary as an administrator and Real as an artist. Gary says they spend most of their time indoors, hunched over, working at a desk. Which is why he looks forward to a week outside, even if it’s 30 below.


“This is like a pilgrimage, literally, it clears my mind and clears the body, too, of all kinds of awful things. It’s just a reawakening, like a rebirth every time, it’s beautiful, it really is.”


And on the best days, Gary and Real say, the sculpture takes over.


Tessier: “You’re sort of going with the flow, going with the line and going where it’s going.”


Berard: “Yeah, and you see quite often, like we follow the lines. It seems like a snake. It wants to go someplace and there’s no way that you could… it’s stronger than your mind.”


Tessier: “Sometimes you try and fight it and don’t listen – this is really where this thing has got to go – and then ultimately it doesn’t work.”


Kelly: “That’s when you make a mistake?”


Tessier: “Yup, and it shows.”


Not that they’re that concerned about making mistakes. Of course they want the sculpture to look good, but they say they don’t care about winning, which was tough for Denis Vrignon-Tessier, Gary’s son, to accept. He’s 22 and has been with the team for 4 years.


Vrignon-Tessier: “Like at first, in a competition, I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be real disappointed if we lose,’ and stuff and then just being with them every year, they’ve just showed me that really, it’s not important.”


Kelly: “So what is it about?”


Vrignon-Tessier: “It’s about being here and spending time with them, just joking around, hearing what they have to say. Yeah.”


In the end, the sculpture has two giant violins. There’s a fiddler kneeling in front of them, playing in a swirl of water.


It doesn’t win.


The judges seem to like the sculptures with lots of details carved on them. But Gary and Real like bold, smooth shapes that will last for a while. And sure enough, after a couple days of freezing rain and warm temperatures, a lot of the detailed work on other sculptures is worn away. But the fiddler and the violins stay strong – ready to play into the spring.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

Rats Scurrying to the Suburbs

  • Life in the suburbs is idyllic to some people... (Photo by Bon Searle)

Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame
for rats pouring out of the sewers in droves all over the country, and the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most pristine
neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce
Kryszak explains what caused the rat invasion and
what’s being done to evict them:

Transcript

Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame for rats pouring out of the sewers
in droves all over the country. And the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most
pristine neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak explains what
caused the rat invasion and what’s being done to evict them:


Piercing blue autumn skies and billowing white clouds drift across the chimneys of this modest,
but perfectly manicured suburb. There aren’t even many leaves crunching under foot. Town workers
have already come and vacuumed them all away. But there’s a nasty little secret scurrying under
the porches and behind the garden sheds in this Western New York town. County Sanitation Chief
Peter Tripi takes us for a peek.


“Can you see the teeth marks here? That’s actually rat gnaw marks. And there’s the garbage bag.
And that’s what we found when we went to this property.”


Now, you might be thinking that we trudged through derelict grass and scattered debris to find
these rat clues. Nope. This is a gorgeous, manicured yard – with not a blade of grass out of
place. But Tripi says rats aren’t choosy.


“You would never think by looking side to side that there would be a rat problem in this yard.
Doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in, or how much money you’ve got. There’s no difference.
They just like your food.”


And you’d be surprised where rats can find food. A garbage can left even briefly uncovered, a
neglected bird feeder, uhhh… dog feces… and even a compost pile.


“Absolutely. This is a rat condo. It’s a grass-clipping compost pile that basically housed rats
to go a hundred yard radius all the way around to the different houses.”


Tripi says rats had to get creative with their housing. A summer of extremely heavy rains drove
the out of the sewers and into some previously rat-free neighborhoods. And with the West Nile
virus killing off millions of birds, the rats have less competition for the food they’re finding
above ground. The consequence is a virtual rat infestation all the way from New York and Illinois
to Virginia, Michigan and L.A. In Kenmore, there have been four thousand rat complaints – nearly
double last year.


(Sound of garbage truck)


Of course, none of this is news to the garbage collectors. They see the problem up close and
personal. Twenty-year veteran Louie Tadaro says this past summer is the worst he’s ever seen.


“Across the street there’s an alleyway and there had to be like ten of them in there, And we
started chasing them with garbage cans trying to kill them, but we couldn’t. By the time we
got there they just split.”


The problem is, they don’t split for long. Vector Control Chief Tripi says now that the rats
have relocated from the sewers to upscale accommodations, they kind of like it.


“And what that means is that they want to live with us. They want to be near our garbage and
our bird feeders. The problem with that is that rats carry diseases.”


We all know about stuff like typhus and the bubonic plague. But there are emerging diseases,
such as a pet-killer called Leptospiroris. It’s killing dogs all across the country. Tripi
says they need to get rid of the rats before the disease starts spreading to humans. So, his
team is taking the rats on, one yard at a time.


Tripi and his Vector control team set rat traps, they fill bait boxes with poison, and – when
they have to – they issue citations to residents who don’t heed the town’s new “rat control rules.” Covered garbage cans only. Clear away all brush. Clean up scattered bird seed and dog feces. Slowly, the rules seem to be working.


(sound of Tripi looking into rat trap)


Still Tripi says it’s mostly educational warfare. And he says now – heading into winter – is the
best time to nip the problem. If the rats get cozy, not only will they stay, they will multiply.
Fully nourished, one adult rat can breed up to sixty baby rats a year.


“The adult rat can live on a little bit of food, but he can’t procreate unless he has a lot of
food source. And they can’t live through the winter unless they’re warm and fattened up.”


So now is the time to – quite literally – put a lid on it. Keep those garbage cans covered, unless
you want some uninvited furry guests this winter, and many, many more come spring.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Report: Renewable Energy Can Kickstart Job Growth

  • Turbines like these not only could help produce energy from a renewable and seemingly infinite resource, but could also create thousands of new jobs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

A new report says a national renewable energy policy could create thousands of new jobs in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

A new report says a national renewable energy policy could create thousands of new
jobs in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists urges Congress to adopt a policy
requiring 20 percent of the nation’s energy to be produced using renewable sources
by the year 2020. Those sources could be wind, solar, or geothermal energy. The report
says such a policy could create thousands of new jobs in manufacturing, construction and
maintenance.


Jeff Deyette is an energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says
rural communities – especially farmers – could be the biggest winners under the proposal.


“Farmers that were chosen to have wind power facilities sited on their land could get up
to as much as $4,000 per turbine to lease on their property.”


Deyette says a national renewable energy standard could save consumers nearly 50 billion
dollars by 2020. He says that’s because increased competition from renewables would help
lower the demand and the price of natural gas.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

4-H Kids Learn to Let Go

Fair season is in full swing in counties around the Midwest, and for kids in 4-H it’s the culmination of months of work. Many have been raising animals to show and sell at the fair. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant spent time with one farm family and reports that the experience can be rewarding and difficult for children:

Transcript

Fair season is in full swing in counties around the Midwest and for kids in 4-H it’s the
culmination of months of work. Many have been raising animals to show and sell at the
fair. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant spent time with one farm family
and reports that the experience can be rewarding and difficult for children:


(sound of auction: “Okay, next coming in we’ve got…”)


Today’s the day they’re auctioning off animals at the Randolph Fair in Portage County.


(more auction sound)


Sarah Allen is only 12 years old. But she stands confidently at the front of the show ring
with her pig Orlando…


(sound fades out)


For many young people, these projects started nearly a year ago…


(farm sound up)


When we first met Sarah at her farm a month ago, she’d already been working with
Orlando for quite a while….


She and her older brothers have been raising farm animals for the fair since last fall.
Aaron and Lucas are standing in the barn behind their house…


JG: “Would you guys mind showing me your animals?” Aaron: “No… these are Lucas’s
cows.” Lucas: “Yeah, these are my steers for fair. I’ve got three of ’em. Their names are
Mrs. Anderson, Andy, and Josh.”

JG: “What do you have to do today to take care of them?” Lucas: “I rinse ’em off, cold
water until they’re real wet. Bring ’em here. I brush ’em down, I blow ’em out, then I
spray hair conditioning on ’em, then I blow them out again. And then I do that at night
too.”

JG: “Why do you have to do that?” Lucas: “It grows the hair out on ’em, so they look
nice and pretty. It’s just like an appearance thing. The judges like you to have the hair
and that… I think it shows have much dedication you have to your project cause you’re
always out here doing something with ’em.”

These kids are serious about raising their animals for fair. Lucas has a special mix of
feed made for the steer and works nearly every day to break them into a halter and get
them ready.

(sound of Sarah patting pigs with a stick… and pig sounds)

Sarah and Aaron direct their hogs with sticks…to practice keeping them in line when
they’re in the fair arena…

Sarah: “This one’s mine. This one’s Orlando. I don’t know what you call yours.”

Aaron: “I don’t name mine usually. Because if you name them, you start getting
attached.”

Sarah is tough as any farm boy, but she also smiles a lot and shares her feelings easily.
Last year it was tough for her to give up the pig she raised for the fair…

Sarah: “I was so sad. I just get attached to ’em so much. Because I like coming out here
and like brushing ’em. And sometimes we give ’em baths whenever we like clean out the
pen we spray them down and give them baths and stuff. So, you get pretty attached.”

(sound fades to black)

(fair sound fades up: “Well, good evening. It’s a nice night to be back here to judge your
2004 Portage County fair. This our first class of lightweight hogs…”

After months of working with the animals, this is the week the kids have been waiting
for…

Aaron Allen is back in the pen where the kids keep their animals.

JG: “How are you feeling? It’s been awhile since I saw you.”

Aaron: “Yeah, I’m not really that nervous, at all. Actually, I’m going up right now…”

Aaron and seven other kids lead their hogs from the back pen into the arena. They use
sticks to direct them around for the judge to see. Sometimes the pigs go wild and just run
around.

But for the most part, the kids and the animals perform well.

By the end of the fair the Allen kids win a handful of ribbons for their showmanship.

(auction sounds)

And they did okay at auction. Both Aaron and Sarah got decent prices for their pigs.

(sound of rain)

The weather’s been holding out all week, but it’s the last night of the fair and the rain has
let loose. It seems to fit the mood. It’s time for the kids to give up their animals.

(hog sounds)

JG: “How long have you had that pig? “Since May.” JG: “What’s its name?”
“I can’t do this… (crying)”

Many are hanging around the barns hugging their sheep, steers, and hogs for the last time.

(sound inside barn)

Teenagers take their cattle from stalls and lead them single file through a large empty
barn up a ramp onto a trailer to be sent for slaughter. These kids understand the sacrifice
that’s made to make sure the meat counter is full.

(sound of loading steer into trailer)

Some of the cattle bawl and buck against the men trying to load them. Many of the kids
are crying. Charles Harner and his teenage daughter lean against the railing of an empty
stall in the steer barn. She’s a little teary-eyed. Harner says the kids are learning an
important lesson.

“It’s a good teaching for when they lose a parent or if they lose a grandpa or grandma.
That, life does go on, we know that. That’s just part of the process of life, you know.
You’re here for a reason, and you go on, so…”

On the other side of the fairgrounds, Sarah Allen sits with her mom getting ready to say
goodbye to her pig, Orlando.

JG: “So is your pig still here?”


Sarah: “Yep. It goes with Aaron’s, so that’s good. I’m not sad. Nope, I’m not sad.
Maybe just a little bit, not a lot.”

Her brother Lucas says it was hard to put his steer on the truck…

Lucas: “It was kind of hard because you work with them, you bought them and you raised
them throughout the year then you put ’em on the truck and you’re like, ‘oh shoot, they’re
gone now.’ You got to go home and have nothing around. It’s kind of hard. But you get
used to it.”

Lucas plans to use most of the money he got for his steers to buy another one in a few
weeks. And then the process starts all over again. But next year, he’ll have some
competition from his little sister. Sarah’s also planning to show cattle at the fair next
summer.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

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Utility Deregulation Leaving Consumers Behind?

A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:

Transcript

A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says
costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:


Several states in the Midwest and elsewhere have tried to foster
competition in the utility industry. The National Association of State
Public Interest Research Groups says some business customers have been
able to save money by shopping around, but most residential electric
customers have not seen the same benefits. In fact, study author Tony
Dutzik says in some states with market restructuring, rate caps are
coming off.


“And there has been widespread concern in a number of those places that
when those rate caps do come off, consumers could be facing significant
increases in rates, and indeed has happened in a couple of instances
where rate caps have been lifted already.”


Dutzick says electric competition has also led to a lack of long-term
planning that could trigger more blackouts and other reliability
problems, but utilities in some states say to make the system more
reliable they’re trying to boost the supply of electricity. The
companies say rates in the region are still a relative bargain.


For the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Senate Debates Fuel Efficiency

Few U.S. Senators in the region supported stricter fuel standards in the most recent vote on the issue on Capitol Hill. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett has more:

Transcript

Few U.S. Senators from the region wanted stricter fuel standards in the most recent vote on the issue on Capitol Hill. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


The legislation called on domestic car makers to produce fleets of vehicles that get
better gas mileage. The standard called for an average fuel economy of 40 miles per gallon by 2015. The current standard is 27-and-a-half miles per gallon. Three of the region’s senators opposed the measure for every one senator who supported it.


Anne Woiwode is with the Sierra Club. She says foreign automakers are producing
more fuel-efficient cars. Woiwode says that competition will hopefully spur lawmakers from
car-producing states to push for stricter fuel standards in the future.


“It’s going to be harder for the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois – the whole Great
Lakes region – to compete.”


Critics of higher fuel economy standards say they would force domestic automakers to
produce smaller, less safe cars. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links